


Nobody's Fault (No Guilty Party)

by Marvels



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Mentions of Suicide, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-28
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-12 16:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29762160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marvels/pseuds/Marvels
Summary: Soulmates AU: The first time your soulmate touches you, their hand leaves an imprint, like a scar on your skin that will be there for as long as they live.orYasha lost her first soulmate. When she finds another in Beauregard, she does her best to keep her at arms length. But that never really solves anything, does it?
Relationships: Beauregard Lionett & The Mighty Nein, Beauregard Lionett/Yasha
Comments: 12
Kudos: 214





	Nobody's Fault (No Guilty Party)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Allen_the_lost](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allen_the_lost/gifts).



Soulmates were hard to find. The old folks used to say that when the world was newer, the peoples fewer and not so distantly apart, you used to be able to find your soulmate much more easily. For when you first laid a hand on your soulmate, it left a mark, a scar, of handprints, fingerprints, immortalizing that first touch. That mark would be with you as long as your soulmate was alive, a memory and testament to the time you spent together. It was easier, then, to touch and be touched by a soulmate when the chances were greater that they were not a world away.

It still happened, of course. Rarely, but not so rarely that the concept of a soulmate could be dismissed as an old wives’ tale. Just rare enough that not everyone understood. Rarer still was the person who understood the agony of looking for that mark and finding it gone again. 

Yasha remembered the way she had howled into the Xhorhasian wastes when she had looked down at her left arm and seen nothing where she was accustomed to seeing a handprint, Zuala’s handprint, encircling her wrist. Instead it was just skin, her own pale skin, untouched, unmarked, as if Zuala had never been there in the first place. A confirmation of what Yasha had already known. She was gone. Yasha had left her there, and now she was gone. 

She didn’t remember much after that realization. Just a slow, sinking feeling as her mind unravelled, leaving her empty, unbidden, and apathetic. Something would happen to her, eventually. It didn’t matter what that something was.

* * *

What happened was a period of emptiness. Then Mollymauk. Then the Mighty Nein. All events punctuated and interrupted by the sonorous roar of thunder in her ears, the crackle of ozone and electricity in her hair. She was changed. She would go on.

They were fighting the Gear Warden in Hupperdook when Yasha first touched Beau. The monk was loud and angry and defensive and so fucking attractive it made her mouth dry up a little just to look at her, much less touch her. Not that she doubted Beau wanted her to, but because she was afraid of letting herself be that close to someone else. She had Molly. 

But then Beau was throwing punches at an animated death machine, and growling in frustration that her hits weren’t doing enough and hitting it anyways and then she was  _ down. _ Yasha watched gracelessly as the monk hit the ground, the Gear Warden only adding insult to injury as it sprayed out another round of shrapnel, peppering Beau’s upturned, unconscious face with a scattering of tiny cuts, all of which began bleeding heavily, dutifully.

Jester got Beau back up. Of course she did, she was powerful like that. But after the fight, she felt her gaze constantly drifting back to where Beauregard and Caleb were leaning unsteadily against each other, seemingly poking fun at each other with a woozy, bloodless kind of humor.

“Yasha, I think I’m going to pass out,” Beau said, clocking her as she approached. Though Beau said it with a smirk and Caleb rolled his eyes at the assertion, Yasha wasn’t totally inclined to believe Beau was lying. Not with all the blood that was drying down her front. So when Beau leaned her way, letting herself go limp in Yasha’s arms, Yasha thought nothing of catching and picking her up in a bridal carry in front of her. Molly shook his head in some sort of performative irritation.

As if to refute his brotherly judgement, Yasha locked eyes with Molly as she cast  _ healing hands _ on Beau, light radiating momentarily from her hands as she summoned life back into Beau. It wasn’t much, but maybe enough to bring some of the color back to Beau’s face. 

“We’ll talk later,” Molly said, a wry smile on his lips. He turned away then, and began to usher the rest of the party away. Yasha began to follow, Beau still in her arms, when Beau gave a sheepish sort of laugh and reached over to tap Yasha on the shoulder, fingers warm as they pressed into the muscle. 

“You can let me down, that helped a lot,” Beau said, eyes trying to catch Yasha’s gaze. Yasha nodded quickly, trying not to drop her too fast. Beau scowled then, as her eyes drifted down to where she’d touched the front of Yasha’s shoulder.

“Oh shit, I got blood on you,” she said, scratching the back of her neck with the practiced motion of a nervous tic. Yasha followed Beau’s gaze, and indeed, there were the lines of four fingers, crimson on her skin. But as Beau wiped away the blood, she scowled. Beneath the bloody paint-job from Beau’s fingers, there was a matching set of what appeared to be light-pink scars, shaped exactly to Beau’s touch.

“Holy shit, Yasha, what did I do to you? Are you okay?” Yasha recoiled slightly as Beau reached out to experimentally touch the markings. Her brain was stuttering, struggling to process what she was seeing. The marks were back. Only they weren’t from Zuala. They were from  _ Beau _ . 

Without bothering to mediate her forcefulness, she grabbed Beau by the shoulders, turning her around to examine the monk’s arms, neck, shoulders. Anywhere that her touch might be. She found it. A full handprint wrapped most of the way around the Monk’s upper arm, the mark of Yasha’s thumb on her tricep, her fingerprints wrapping around to end on the inside of her bicep. 

“Uh, is your… is that healing thing supposed to do that?” Beau asked, her bravado somewhat gone now, unnerved by Yasha’s silence, her apparent panic.

“No, Beauregard, it is not,” Yasha answered finally. She flinched a little internally at the coldness in her voice. It was nothing she couldn’t rationalize away, in time. Beau looked confused, and perhaps a little intimidated, but mostly, her eyes were trained on Yasha’s expression. She could feel the warm earnestness of Beau’s gaze burning the side of her face, and she couldn’t bring herself to fully look at her. Not now. 

“If she’s making you uncomfortable, just leave her down there, Yash!” Mollymauk’s voice came like a lifeline, and, without looking back at Beau, she followed Molly’s voice up the stairs. Yasha must have looked as stricken as she felt, because Molly’s expression went from one of banal annoyance to one of anger.

“What did she do?” He asked, poising one of his swords over his chest, ready to draw upon its blood magic to punish the monk. Their friend. She caught his arm before the blade could break the skin, and then reached with her opposite hand to gesture to the fingerprints on her shoulder. He seemed confused for just a moment before his eyes widened.

She could hear Beau coming slowly up the stairs behind her as Molly began to laugh. 

“Oh this is going to be so good for you, and so hilarious for me,” Molly gasped through sobs of laughter. “Next time we take watch together, we’ll have to have more than a  _ little _ chat.”

That time never came. 

* * *

It wasn’t until Nicodranas that Beau and Yasha spoke again. Molly was weeks dead, and Yasha hadn’t been prepared to return to the group so soon. Seeing them was still a wound, and the way that Beau looked at her, so wide-eyed and hopeful… It wasn’t what she’d wanted. Not yet, anyway. Someone must have told Beau, then, what the marks meant. By the way Caleb’s eyes caught immediately on the four finger marks on the front of her shoulder, she had a good guess of who Beau had asked, who had spelled it out for her.

It wasn’t until after they had freed the marid from its chains beneath the city and returned to the Lavish Chateau that Beau approached her. The rest of the party was seated at a table for dinner, Yasha having volunteered to get more drinks. Beau must have followed her up, because she sat down next to her at the bar, turning to face her completely. Yasha noted Beau’s marks, a paler beige set on the tan hue of her skin, and Beau placed her opposite hand over it self-consciously.

“You knew what it was, then,” Beau asked. There was a small laugh in her voice, but it was humorless, and she was struggling to meet Yasha’s eye.

This… was not what Yasha had expected. She’d expected to have to bat Beau off like a pesky mosquito, unable to hear the word “no” without complaint. She’d expected lust, or bravado or some sort of innuendo, unabashed flirting, but uncertainty? That wasn’t like Beau at all.

“I did,” Yasha replied simply. She didn’t feel like she owed Beauregard the story of why. Not yet, anyways. No one else knew. No one but Molly. 

“And you… you didn’t want...” Beau trailed off, her right hand still absently scratching at the mark on her left arm, short fingernails digging into the raised skin with a casual sort of violence. Yasha pulled her eyes away from Beau’s hand to look her in the eye, sighing a little as she did. The hope there was achingly sweet, but Yasha knew she couldn’t. Not now. Maybe not ever. 

“I’m just… it’s a lot,” Yasha said carefully, trying to stay neutral to the subtle, pitiful way that Beau’s shoulders sagged and her eyes dropped back to the bar. Despite herself, Yasha tried to backtrack by clarifying, “for both of us.”

Beau nodded then, swallowing visibly, her throat tight and her eyes fixed very firmly on the bar. 

“Right. No, I get it, it’s a lot, I’m… you don’t really know me, and I’m kind of a huge asshole who-” Beau seemed to stop herself from some deeper, harsher self-deprecation, looking back up at Yasha with a fake smile. It was almost convincing.

“Only Caleb and Nott know,” Beau continued. “I mean, I only talked to Caleb about the mark, but I have to assume he told Nott too. So no one else… I mean, Caleb’s not going to bother you about it either, that’s not his style.” 

“Okay,” was all Yasha could say. Their drinks arrived only moments later, and Beau kept that fake smile up for the rest of the evening, and pointedly avoided meeting Yasha’s eye.

* * *

They hadn’t really talked about it much in the time since. Beau had continued to flirt with her, but from a distance, in a way that was both flattering and performative. She’d show off when they were fighting, shooting Yasha overt smirks and raised eyebrows when she’d drop a foe, only to get sucker-punched herself for her trouble. It was… weirdly charming, despite the one-sided nature of it all.

Then Yasha told the whole group about Zuala. Maybe it was the danger she felt being back in Xhorhas, or perhaps it was the fear deep in her belly about the portals to the Underdark. Either way, the truth came bubbling out of her while they camped out back at the mining camp of the Deepriver Mine. Jester and Caduceus had known of course, they’d known since the demon visited her on their ship out at sea.

But she pointedly avoided meeting Beau’s eye as she admitted that they had been soulmates, that her mark from Zuala was gone now, that she was left with nothing but grief and loss. In avoiding Beauregard’s eye, she found herself looking at Caleb. There was a sympathetic pain in his eyes, yes, but he also kept glancing over at Beau, worrying at his upper lip as he tried to watch her covertly. 

Beau spoke up only once while Yasha told her story, correcting her.

“You aren’t a coward, you’re a survivor,” Beau asserted quietly. She offered no other comment than that. Peripherally, Yasha could see that Beau wasn’t looking at her either. She couldn’t. Not while the pain of what they both weren’t saying hung in the air.

It wasn’t until they took final watch together in the wastes of Xhorhas, chasing down some phantom from Yasha’s past that they had the chance to speak alone. 

Beau sat side-on with Yasha as they both breathed in the air of the night, just outside the dome. By some unspoken agreement, they had moved there, knowing that what they needed to talk about required some greater privacy than what the hut afforded them. Beau was waiting her out though. Not aggressively, exactly, but with a lack of patience that was new to their situation. Her fingers were drumming on one knee, her right hand once again clawing into the mark on her shoulder, as if she was trying to rend it off.

“I wanted to tell you,” Yasha began shortly. “But I wasn’t ready. And I’m sorry.” Beau looked over at her, eyes wide and bemused.

“It wasn’t fair of you. I deserved to know,” she said shortly. It might have been her imagination, but in the dark, Yasha was fairly certain that Beau’s free hand was shaking, eyes bright in the moonless, starlit night. But still, Yasha bristled a little.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her. We didn’t know each other very well when we got the marks, and I felt like it was private,” Yasha countered.

“You didn’t have to tell me about her. But you could have… in Nicodranas… you could have told me that you weren’t interested. That this couldn’t… we couldn’t…” Beau trailed off, her voice slightly choked in a way that Yasha recognized as crying. She couldn’t quite make out Beau’s argument, though.

“What do you mean?” Yasha tested. Beau gave a wet, choked laugh.

“I mean, it figured? That I’m just someone’s backup. That my soulmate already had another soulmate, already had someone? I don’t-” Beau caught herself then, taking a deep, steadying inhale. “I was still trying. I was excited, I tried to be respectful and keep my distance and I didn’t understand why my soulmate didn’t like me back, y’know? And I just wish you could have told me earlier that you didn’t want that. Would never want that. That we weren’t that kind of soulmates.”

Yasha sat in stunned silence, the chill of the night suddenly harsher than before, constricting her at the throat.  _ Oh _ . Beau sniffed heavily in the silence, before chuckling.

“I’m sorry. I’m a selfish asshole. You just told me that your wife, your soulmate, died and I’m making it all about me. I’m such a jerk sometimes, gods.” She paused for a moment then, her breathing evening out. “I’m glad you told us, though. We want to be here for you, Yasha. We all care about you.” Yasha couldn’t help but notice the way the “I” shifted to “we” when her words got kinder, more supportive. There was no love in Beauregard’s heart for herself. 

“That’s… there’s so much information in what you just said, Beau,” Yasha finally managed, her brain still stuttering, trying to catch up.

“You don’t have to say anything, Yasha,” Beau said, her voice even again, comforting. “I like you a lot, and I hope that I can be here as your friend. Someone you can trust. I want that for us.”

Yasha breathed deeply. There was a kindness there, in Beau’s words, in the way she swallowed her sadness down like so much salt water, holding it inside her despite knowing that it would come spilling back out painfully, one way or another. It was a kindness that Yasha was unsure that she really deserved. She smiled anyway. She would pay her penance for causing Beau pain, one way or another. Penance never failed to come collect on Yasha.

* * *

_ No. Please no. Please let me stop, not her, please, Obann.  _ Yasha felt the fear welling up inside her. She had been Obann’s for another few weeks this time around, and she had committed horrors unspeakable. She was glad for forgetting the years before. She may have killed herself, had she remembered. 

As she stalked up to a wounded Beauregard, standing a little off-kilter on the dais, bent over a gory wound in her side, Yasha thought grimly that she may kill herself yet.

“Long time, no see,” Beau quipped, trying to smile at Yasha despite the way she was glancing around desperately for an exit. She was desperate for someone to step in and stop what was coming. No one was coming. No one ever seemed to, not when Yasha needed them most. She drew up Skingorger with both hands, and the fear finally took over Beau’s face. 

“Yash-”

The first strike curved down, cutting her clavicle to hip. There was so much blood, spraying up onto Yasha’s face, staining Beau’s clothes, pooling on her chest as she fell back, already unconscious, face blank, those blue eyes only halfway closed.

The second strike stabbed true, and Yasha tried not to gag as she felt her soulmate’s sternum crack inwards under the force of her blade. Beau’s eyes seemed to jerk a little further open at the impact, wracked with pain, before glassing over again, unseeing. Yasha felt a sob tear out of her throat, hand shaking as she withdrew the blade from Beau’s chest cavity, leaving her motionless, bloodless, beneath the Laughing Hand on the dais.

She looked down, and found herself unable to look away from the four fingerprints, still pink on her shoulder, speckled in the arterial blood of the woman who put them there. No. She could not lose another. Not another mark. Not another soulmate.

It was only then that a pain, white-hot and burning, touched the back of her neck, and with the sound of breaking glass, she felt the hold on her mind  _ release _ . Yasha could not hold back the primal scream that erupted from her then, not when the taste of Beau’s blood still sat, metallic and bitter on her tongue. 

“We have a lot to talk about,” Fjord said to her, appearing in her vision as if he had teleported there. “But for now, let’s take care of this.”

He was gesturing, she realized, to the Laughing Hand, still standing above Beauregard, who, by some miracle, was propped up weakly on her elbows. Not gone, still here, not gone, still here.

Before she could so much as step towards the Hand, a web of fire erupted around him, his skin and multitude of mouths crumbling to ash as Beau shielded her eyes against the flame. It wasn’t until Jester and Caduceus effectively herded them all out to an antechamber that Yasha realized that Obann was no longer there. He still remained.

A hand touched her shoulder, warm and soft, and Yasha knew the hand by the way its fingertips fit perfectly into the scar on her shoulder.

“Beau-”

“It wasn’t you,” Beau said firmly. “I know it wasn’t you.” 

Yasha’s throat was too full then to do anything but nod. She wasn’t going to cry. Not now, not while she still had a vengeance to enact, a debt to repay. Not while all of the Mighty Nein were watching. So all she did was reach out once again, hand fitting into the handprint on Beau’s upper arm, and cast  _ healing hands _ . Beau’s body relaxed a bit from how she had been standing, too stiff and tense and upright.

It would have to be enough for the time being.

* * *

The self-flagellation hadn’t worked, none of the Nein had been willing to let that stand for more than the one bout that Yasha thrown in the fighting pits. And yet, as they rode through Kamordah, Yasha wondered if she was truly the only one who could see the way that Beau was practically doubled over in pain. She’d seen Beau crying in the Evening Nip the night before, watched the way Fjord had slid in beside her and listened with calm, a steadying hand on her shoulder. As she checked over her shoulder back at Fjord, she saw the way his eyes were glued on Beau as well, wary, reluctant to be dragging her back here. 

Yasha wondered, absently, how much she had missed in her time away from them all, from Beau. Had they stepped in? Had she been in pain? Found some fault in herself again? Or had Yasha just never seen the ways Beau had tied herself to Fjord, to Caleb, to the rest of the party? She realized, with no small amount of shame, that in her pain, she had… while she hadn’t fully avoided Beauregard, she had been afraid of getting close. Of liking what she might find in her.

The Lionett home was lovely. Yasha did not recall the last time she had hated something so beautiful. The insides were poisonous, and Yasha could do nothing but watch as Beau’s carefully stacked defenses were knocked away with casual cruelty and disappointment, the monk’s hands shaking, unclenched, just limp and hopeless at her sides. 

Fjord hustled Beau out of the home as soon as the moment presented itself, and Beau let it happen. Both Nott and Caleb had a shared look of sheepish regret on their faces. They hadn’t known then. Beau hadn’t told either of them. 

Yasha left Beau’s father on his threshold with a thinly veiled threat, and only managed to slip out of her rage when she realized that Beauregard was openly weeping in Jester’s arms. Jester looked up at Yasha, clearly gesturing a Beau with a nod of her head, eyes wide as she gesticulated wordlessly. Yasha joined in hugging Beau who started a little in her arms before melting further. Everything about her body language read as “safe” then, insulated between her friends. Away from  _ him _ . 

Beau would never have to come back here, Yasha decided to herself. Yasha would protect her from anything that threatened to drag her back. Yasha would keep her safe. It was the least she could do. 

* * *

Beau had been alone with the hag for several minutes. Yasha, who had been standing erect since the door was slammed shut, started pacing as the wait dragged on with no sign of Beauregard. 

“She has been in there too long,” Yasha snarled to no one in particular. Nott had shrunk down behind Caleb’s leg, as if the wizard could save her if Yasha turned against her. It didn’t matter, really, Yasha wasn’t thinking about Nott.

“It’ll only make things worse if we barge in,” Fjord reasoned. But his voice was uneasy, and had lost the authoritative sureness it usually had. These were uncharted waters. 

“We’re never supposed to split the group,” Jester said, her voice high and shaky. “That’s how we get into trouble.” 

“Beauregard is smart, she will not do anything foolish,” Caleb said, perhaps a little more patient and assured than the others. Yasha snarled at his bravado, wordless in her anger. From what she remembered, Beau was always closest with Caleb, in their weird human way. And yet, he had asked her to return to Kamordah.

“It’s not like we sent her back home to reopen painful relationships with her past or anything recently,” Nott said quietly from behind Caleb’s leg. Caleb looked down at her witheringly, a spot of pain opening on his face before he schooled his composure back into place.

It was only then that the door of the hut swung open. 

All of the Nein whirled around to face it, Yasha most eagerly of all. But no one emerged.

“Beau!” Jester called hopefully. 

No response. 

“Beauregard?” Caleb now, his voice uncertain. Yasha closed the hundred feet between her and the hut in moments, yanking the door fully off its hinges as she pulled it back. 

The hag was there, of course she was, limbs long and spindly. But Beauregard was not.

“Where is she?” Yasha’s voice was guttural, savage, barely more than a growl.

“Beauregard Lionett has lifted the curse on Veth Brenatto in exchange for a curse of her own,” the hag said, watching Yasha hungrily. The sound of breath behind Yasha told her that they had caught up, they had heard. 

“What kind of curse?” It was Caleb. His anger flicked some feral instinct in her chest, some sort of possessiveness that screamed  _ how dare you act as her protector? You who would watch her set fire to herself to keep your friend warm? _

A horrible voice then came to remind Yasha  _ and you? The protector who almost murdered her soulmate? There is no nobility here. Not to be had by you, Orphanmaker. _

“She has forfeit unto me everything she has earned, all that she has worked to achieve, and offered to leave you. Her family, she called you. She has traded misery for misery, and so one curse has replaced another,” the hag said pensively, her eyes falling onto the soul mark on Yasha’s shoulder. Her pallid, grey-tinted face broke into a predatory smile.  _ She knew _ .

“She gave you misery that was not hers to give. You are taking misery from  _ us _ ,” Caleb said. Yasha was glad this time when Caleb spoke up, though his voice was shaking. Her throat had closed with a grief so palpable she was surprised it did not bowl her over. She could not move. She could not breathe. When had Beauregard come to feel like the very air in her lungs? She could not rightly say.

“You can’t do that! I don’t want it! Bring her back! Bring her  _ back _ !” Veth was screeching at the hag now, and was answered only by laughter. There was no calm amongst them. They had been prepared for a fight, not for a bloodless victory at immeasurable cost.

Through the torrent of anger, fear, and hatred that her friends were spewing at the hag, at Isharnai, Yasha felt herself stumble back, out of the stripped doorway, and over to sit on the wooden door she had discarded only a minute before, her strength leaving her.

“I can’t lose her…” Yasha said to the chilled air in front of her. “She is my… I did not…” Her vision blurred slightly with tears, and she saw blue as Jester knelt down in front of her.

“We will find her, Yasha,” Jester said firmly, though her cheeks were wet with tears of her own. “We will find Beau, and everything will be alright again.”

* * *

They first reached out to Essek through Jester’s  _ Sending _ spell. 

A quick attempt at scrying on Beau had yielded nothing but emptiness and a sympathetic hum from the Traveler, and a  _ Sending _ to Beau yielded no response, and a gentle comment from the Traveler that communication with their monk was being blocked by some higher magic. Her very existence was blocked from their view, but they hoped that it was not blocked for everyone. That perhaps someone else could find her for them, that they could then bring her back to them. 

Essek’s response was cagey and terse, that he was indisposed at the moment, acting on behalf of the Bright Queen in a diplomatic sense, and that in a couple of weeks, he would be able to aid them. It was only several minutes of calming reassurance from Fjord that prevented Jester from burning another spell slot just to verbally abuse Essek for his cowardice. 

Reaching out to Yussa the next day, when Jester had the spell slot, they found more success. He, only somewhat reluctantly, told them to come to visit him, and he would do what he could to aid them in finding her. Yasha gritted her teeth to keep from spitting at Yussa’s feet when they arrived and he asked which one of them had wandered off. As if Beauregard was a wayward puppy or a fool who got lost inside a shack. As if there was anything simple about how Beauregard left them.

“You’re doing fine, Yasha,” Caduceus said in her ear, and with a touch of his hand on her shoulders, she felt the barely-contained emotion in her soothe from a boil to a faint and distant heat.

“I do not need magic to keep my temper, Caduceus,” Yasha said through her teeth. “I need Beauregard back.” As recently as two days ago she would have worried about the way the others would see her possessiveness of Beau. It seemed so inconsequential now that Beau was gone. Such a stupid thing to worry about. It was as if she hadn’t understood the impermanence of Beau’s presence. After losing Zuala, after almost killing Beau, how had she failed to understand that?

“We all want her to return safely, that’s why we’re here,” Caduceus said mildly. “All of us. Let us help.” Yasha forced herself to look him in the eye, and was met with a face that was curious, certainly, but not judgemental. 

“We are soulmates, Beauregard and I,” Yasha said hesitantly. Caduceus nodded at this and gently touched the marks on her shoulder.

“I did notice these. Even if they appeared before my time in your company,” Caduceus said. Of course he had. He saw everything that happened within the group, despite his quiet nature.

“I… I made her believe that I refuted them. That even though I was her soulmate, I would not be able to love her. Because of Zuala. Because I had already had another soulmate,” Yasha said. The  _ Calm Emotions _ spell wearing away, leaving nothing but guilt, heavy in her chest.

“You didn’t  _ make _ her believe anything, Yasha,” Caduceus said gently, a warm hand on her knee, not casting anything, just sitting there, reassuring. A show of support. A friend. “As much as we may care for a person, we are not responsible for their emotions or their actions.”

“But I did not try to convince her otherwise. She was… she tried to be honest and vulnerable with me and I just… I wasn’t ready to be honest with her, and it cost me. Who knows how much now?” When she finally looked up at Caduceus, he was nodding, slowly, understanding and sympathetic. Yasha wished she could pull away from him then, deny herself the warmth and understanding that he was giving her. But she couldn’t. Of course she couldn’t. She had always been weak that way.

“We always wish we had more time, when it seems that there’s no time left. All we can do is learn from that. To live so that we may end our days not wishing for more time,” Caduceus said gravely. It was the closest he had come to being stern with her, and Yasha relished the toughness in his words, the closest thing she could get to punishment from her friends.

It was then that Caleb and Jester emerged from what Yussa had called his amplification chamber, the smaller elven wizard trailing them, looking drained. 

“We know where she is,” Jester said. She had a fake smile on, but it didn’t reach her eyes, and Caleb was withdrawn, looking as tortured as he ever had.

“That’s good news,” Fjord said, crossing over to the far side of the chamber to reach out to Jester, his smile hopeful. 

“It will not be so simple, we do not think. She is back in Kamordah. She is living with her parents,” Caleb said, his expression glassy. Yasha hissed slightly at the implication. “We think that it will be quite difficult for us to travel back to her home. It might take longer, even if we are assisted, or if we use magical means. Isharnai has put up abjuration wards that will make it very difficult, if not impossible to reach her.”

“Why Kamordah?” Caduceus asked from where he sat at Yasha’s side. “Surely it would have been more effective to send her to some pocket dimension or halfway across the world.” Jester and Caleb exchanged looks.

“Isharnai deals in the business of misery. Where else would Beauregard be more miserable?” Caleb said shakily.

“It’s possible that her father’s deal with the hag has something to do with it, too,” Jester added, a little nervously. “She has leverage over him, she can make him keep Beau miserable, if it means that he can keep his fortunes. We have scryed on him, and he… he never seemed to be a kind man, but he seems… crueler than Beau ever told us.”

Yasha felt her upper lip curl again, expression twisted with indignant fury. She had planned to protect Beau, to keep her from that damned house, keep her  _ safe _ . And here she was found in more pain than she’d ever been in at home. Another failure for Yasha’s record. 

With a few deep breaths, fuelled deeply by purpose, Yasha felt her expression melt into neutrality and she nodded. Beauregard needed saving. Yasha had penance to pay.

“Then we’d best get walking, yeah?”

* * *

Caleb was indeed correct- the abjuration wards around Kamordah, around the Lionetts’ home, were powerful. 

They’d teleported to the Cobalt Soul in Zadash, only realizing once they arrived that their connection to the Cobalt Soul was no longer with them. Fjord and Jester had played diplomat with Archivist Zeenoth, only half-lying about how they were returning to reunite with Beau in a nearby town. The curse, her sacrifice, and her likely imprisonment were all tactfully left out of the conversation.

Yasha pushed the group to move at pace for long hours the first two days. Having left their other horses in Kamordah only days before, the group felt sheepish buying another round to just end up leaving there again. They’d settled on a cart, rotating who was riding and who was on foot as equitably as they could. Yasha refused to ride in the cart, preferring to dictate the pace up front.

On the third day of travel, they should have reached Kamordah. 

On the fourth, Yasha began to slow, her hackles rising as the dense fog around them unsettled the horses drawing the cart. The air smelled sulfuric, and they should have been there. They should have found her. They began doubling back and forth, taking short walks off the road and into the forests around them, trying to find what was hidden.

When the fifth day of travel drew to a close with them seemingly no closer to finding Beau, Yasha excused herself for the evening, and went to a clearing in the woods before allowing her rage to overpower her, as she began lashing out with Skingorger at the trees around her, furious and heartbroken and unable to go on without channeling her misery into action.

Younger trees and smaller growths were completely obliterated under her blade, and Yasha heard herself scream in frustration as she swung the blade into a thicker tree, relishing the lack of give, the heartiness of something she couldn’t break right away. Why couldn’t she just fucking do this? Why was she so fucking useless to Beau now? Why hadn’t she just fucking said something before Beau walked into Isharnai’s hut, shoulders set, face blank?

Of course, she loved Beau. Of course she did. Wasn’t it just the way that she was only able to get it through her dumb thick skull too late? She loved Beau. She  _ needed _ Beau. Even if it was a selfish endeavor, she would get her back.

* * *

In the end, it took them a little under a month, and several thousand gold in resources, favors, and hirelings to get through the wards and into Kamordah. To get to Beau. 

It was evening, and it was winter, and Yasha had lost the ability to sleep more than an hour without waking up to dreams of Beau dead, by Yasha’s hand or her father’s. She had not seen herself in a mirror in some time, but imagined that she was not looking anywhere close to her respectable best as she strode up and pounded on the Lionetts’ front door with her fist.

“Open the  _ fucking _ door!” Caleb yelled over her shoulder.

At one point, Yasha would have been surprised to hear Caleb lose his composure at her side. She would have judged him for what had happened in Kamordah weeks ago. But she’d watched his composure unravel alongside hers this time, as they spent days and weeks slowly losing their minds to their inability to find her, despite the way that they  _ knew _ how close they were. They were all unwinding now.

When the door swung inward, Yasha and Caleb both took half a step back. In front of them was Thoreau Lionett, sporting a bruised jaw and an expression of darkened fury.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing here at this hour?” He asked. All the propriety of their first meeting was gone, leaving a not a gentleman, but a snarling bully of a man, defensive, angry, and unwilling to bend to the thug friends of his daughter.

“You know very well what we are doing here Thoreau, and if you know what is good for you, you will show us to your daughter right now,” Caleb said from Yasha’s elbow. An amber-colored light glowed against Thoreau’s face, and Yasha did not have to look back to know that Caleb had conjured fire in his palm. Nothing made Caleb look quite so terrifying as fire in his hands.

A battle crossed Thoreau’s face then, anger warring with fear and resentment.

“You can’t take her back, you know,” Thoreau said. His voice was shaking, but he stood firm.

“You can’t stop us,” Yasha replied. He regarded her, and the fear in his expression grew more pronounced. Perhaps he remembered her from a month ago. Perhaps it was simply because she was looming over him in the light of an arcane fire, late at night.

“I must keep her here. The witch in the mountains told me so. She has always had claim to part of my fortune, and if I can keep her here, I can avoid my inevitable end. I will not be humbled by that which I want most,” Thoreau’s voice trembled, but there was a stubbornness to his voice, a pride that made Yasha’s stomach turn. No. This would not be the end. 

“If you keep her from me, you will not live to see the morning,” Yasha said. She had expected the words to come out in a rage, but instead, they came out cool and slow, enunciating clearly. “She is not yours.”

Thoreau hesitated then, his arm still barred across the door. It was long enough. With one swift and practiced movement, Yasha grabbed Thoreau’s wrist and midway up his forearm and then  _ snapped _ . Thoreau howled in pain, doubled over his deformed arm, and wordlessly, Yasha pushed him to the side, crossing the threshold.

“Beauregard!” Nott screeched, scrambling in behind Yasha. No one chastised Yasha for her chosen path of violence. They were all too worn down by weeks of searching, weeks of not being able to communicate with Beau, weeks of guilt that something had been so wrong and that no one had seen.

“I’ll check downstairs,” Caleb told Yasha. She’d never been their leader, not even close, but here in this house, they were deferential to her. Like she was a commander. She did not care for it.

“I’ll go with him,” Nott said tersely. Yasha nodded to the both of them. Caduceus, Fjord and Jester hesitated in the doorway.

“I’ll watch this one,” Fjord said, nodding toward Thoreau, where he was breathing heavily on the ground.

“I’ll go up,” Yasha said, eyeing the staircase ahead. All around her, as the Nein began to ransack the house, were the sounds of their friends calling out for Beau. As she reached the upper landing, Yasha paused and listened, looking around at the array of doors on the landing. One had a pretty green “T” on the door, and Yasha turned away from that one. She did not wish to see Beauregard’s brother, almost as much as she did not want him to see her. 

Turning around, she noticed one of the doors had a larger handle than the others, wrought iron, and a large iron plate with a locking mechanism on the outside. Slowly, she approached that door, placing one hand on the wood of the door.

“Beau?” She asked quietly. Through the door, muffled footsteps. Metal dragging across the floor. Chains? Yasha felt her blood boil. 

“Yasha?” a muffled response. Beau’s voice, faraway, but still so much closer than it had been in a long time. 

“Stand back, Beau,” Yasha said, a little more loudly. The sound of dragging metal backed away from the door, and with a deep breath, Yasha withdrew the Magician’s Judge, and began to slam into the door. The noise seemed to attract the rest of their party, but as before, no one stopped her. They wouldn’t dare.

With a final slash, the door collapsed inwards, splintering under the force of Yasha’s strikes. The room inside was dark, only lit dimly by a lantern by the bed. But standing there, feet manacled together with a length of chain, stood Beau. 

She looked mostly unharmed, besides the limp dirtiness of her hair, the more exaggerated slightness to her build, and the chains on her ankles. Her arms lacked their usual wraps, bracers, and gloves, and instead had thick iron manacles around each wrist. They were not connected by a chain, but judging by the way that Beau’s shoulders were sagging downwards, they were heavy, weighing down her arms. Keeping her contained.

“What are you doing here?” Beau asked. The whole of the party was standing in the doorway, but she could not have been any more clearly speaking to Yasha alone. In the half light, Yasha couldn’t make out every nuance on Beau’s face, but she looked tired, not unlike the rest of them. These weeks had not been kind to her.

“You left us,” Yasha said, voice dipping into a deeper, more husky register. She couldn’t move. She could only stare. How long had she waited for this moment? How could she have nothing to say.

“Yeah, of course I did,” Beau said, eyes finally flitting away from Yasha to the party assembling behind her. “Why is Nott still a goblin? This was supposed to break the curse.” The casual way she dismissed her departure was like a blow to the gut, and it nearly doubled Yasha over.

“We didn’t change her back, because none of us agreed to the deal you made. Nott included. We’re leaving here, and you’re coming with us,” Yasha said, not allowing room for argument. Beau stepped unsurely towards her then, into the light of the hall. She didn’t seem to have the words for Yasha either. 

Yasha reached out then, to touch at the bare skin of Beau’s left arm, to connect with the mark again. Beau flinched, and while it hurt to have her jump back, Yasha pushed forward, just a little bit. She suspected that the flinch had very little to do with Yasha’s approach and quite a lot more to do with the bruise on Thoreau’s jaw.

With careful hands, Yasha reached out to take Beau’s left arm, and felt a snarl creep across her features as she saw the harsh, straight lines of bruise striping the back of her arm. It was old bruising, going purple and green, approximately the same age as Thoreu’s bruising. Yasha felt her nostrils flare as rage simmered beneath her skin. 

“You are coming with us,” Yasha said finally. She wrapped her hand softly, so softly, around the mark her hand had left there so many months ago, and closed her eyes. Her hand felt warm there, against Beau’s skin. On the skin of her shoulder, she felt light fingertips brush against her, slightly clumsy with the weight of the shackle on her wrist, but not heavy handed. 

A breath from Beau’s lips tickled the skin at the front of Yasha’s neck, and goose-bumps rose on her skin as she allowed herself to sink into the feeling of how right this all felt. All she wanted to do was pick up Beau and carry her out of there, tell her how sorry she was, that she  _ loved _ her.

Apologies and healing and love would come later. The feeling of Beau’s fingers on her skin was enough then. Beau was always enough.

They led her away from the house in silence, and had no trouble finding the road again.

* * *

It had been three days since they returned to Nicodranas from Kamordah via Teleportation. Jester had suggested Nicodranas when Beau had adamantly refused the idea of returning to Zadash. She hadn’t given a reason, but no one had pushed her to supply one. Yasha presumed it had something to do with the Cobalt Soul there, with her mentor Dairon, and with the way in which she had given up the Soul just as freely as she had given up the Nein. It was hard to face the consequences of your actions, Yasha understood. Harder still when you hadn’t understood that your actions were hurting people.

They had stayed in the Lavish Chateau for the past several nights, and despite Marion’s insistence that she could get them multiple rooms, the Mighty Nein had chosen to all camp out in a single room, Nott and Jester and Caleb and Beau all piled onto the one king-sized bed, while Caduceus, Fjord, and Yasha curled up on floor. 

Yasha always waited until she was relatively sure that the rest of them were asleep before sneaking out to the rooftop each night for a couple of hours to spend thinking, processing… trying to plan what to say. There were no storms in Nicodranas those nights, but Yasha’s dreams kept turning to Zuala, to feathered wings and flight, to words from the Stormlord, telling her that she was worthy. Redeemed.

It was only on the third night that her meditations were interrupted by the quiet sound of the rooftop trapdoor thumping open. She spun around, prepared to give an explanation, but froze for a moment at the sight of Beau getting to her feet, staring back at her. The monk had always been light on her feet, but after spending so many weeks weighed down by the extra weight of her bonds, her walk was even lighter. How could a woman look so free when she walked?

Beau came to stand by the edge where Yasha was looking out over the coast, the dim firelight of the city and the reflection of the moon in the bay. Her calloused, bare feet stopped by Yasha’s side, the delicate angles of her ankles a work of art in the pale moonlight.

“I can go, if you didn’t want company,” Beau offered, quietly. She’d been so quiet since her return. The Nein had agreed, at Caduceus’s urging, to not push the conversation about why she had left. That she would come to them with it in time. But in the space that the absence of that conversation left, there was just silence. 

“I would love your company, Beau,” Yasha said warmly, looking up at her. She meant it, and she hoped that Beau could see that. Beau waited only for a moment before sitting down cross-legged next to Yasha, to her right, their thighs and shoulders close enough to touch, but apart for the time being.

Yasha tried her best to wait. She needed to talk to Beau, needed to set things right, to dissuade Beau from the borderline suicidal mentality that she had been walking, that she was walking still. But instead she waited, letting the silent minutes stretch out before them. Finally, Beau took a deep breath.

“I didn’t mean to hurt all of you. That was… that was the opposite of what I was trying to do. I was trying to help you all,” Beau began slowly. Her right hand drew up to touch the soul mark on her left arm, a nervous tic, a habit. Yasha carefully reached over and took Beau’s fidgeting hand in hers, twisting their fingers together, protecting Beau from herself, but anchoring her too. Anchoring the both of them.

“Did you think we would not care that you left?” Yasha hedged. Beau’s eyes were glued to their interlaced fingers, and made a couple of unsure sounds as she seemed to try and find the words.

“I mean… I know you care. We’ve been a group for over a year now. But Nott is going to leave once she’s a halfling again. And Caduceus and Fjord, they have the Wildmother together, and you…” Beau stopped there. She didn’t look up at Yasha, but just kept looking at their hands, interlocked.

“What about me?” Yasha prompted. Beau had to bring it up, she had decided, but then Yasha could set her straight, end this nonsense. Beau shook her head a little bit, a wry and unhappy smile on her face.

“You’re your own person. I can’t expect you to want to stay around forever either. And it…”Beau paused here, taking a deep breath. “It’s hard to be around you, Yasha. I- I care deeply for you. And- and, like it or not, you are my soulmate. And that means something to me. And if it can’t mean something to you, I understand, but I can’t be around you every day like that. Because that hurts me.” 

Beau’s eyes were trained on the coastline now, chin up, steadfastly refusing to have her face downturned at this admission, despite the shame that radiated from Beau as she said it. There was pride in her still, and a sliver of self-preservation, no matter how small. Yasha smiled at that.

“Beau,” she said gently. When Beau kept her eyes trained on the skyline, Yasha reached over with gentle fingers on Beau’s chin, tilting her face to look at her, eye to eye. Beau’s eyes were lined with tears, but steeled, somehow, like there were walls that had been built up between her vulnerabilities and the world. 

“What, Yash?” Beau asked, her voice was cracking, wet, miserable. As if she had taken the hag’s deal to avoid this very conversation.

“I love you,” Yasha said.

Beau blinked at her, as if perhaps this was a dream or illusion that was waiting to be dispelled.

“What?” Beau’s voice had gone hoarse now, barely above a whisper. She was staring at Yasha hungrily, almost angrily. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that I love you. And I wanted to tell you, but then you were gone and we couldn’t Send to you and we were kept away from Kamordah but abjuration wards and all I wanted was to reach you and tell you but I couldn’t for so long-”

The hint of anger that had been toying with the edges of Beau’s eyes, her brows, her lips, now took a stronger position. 

“If you’re lying to me-”

“Beau!”

“Stop, Yasha. If you’re lying to me because you think I’m a flight risk or in danger of taking up more deals with fucking hags, I’ll never forgive you. Never,” Beau said, angry tears forming at the corners of her eyes, threatening to spill. Every muscle in her body had gone stiff and ramrod straight and everything about her posture and her pulse against Yasha’s wrist read  _ run _ . Yasha just held her hand tighter. 

“I’m not lying to you, Beauregard. I know that I haven’t been receptive or forthcoming with you in the past, but is it really so hard to believe that I could love you?” Those words. Those were the words that broke the tension. 

In moments, Beau was bent over double, sobbing, crying hard and loud and agonized. It took very little for Yasha to shuffle Beau into her lap, into her arms, where Yasha held her tight to her chest, stroking her hair and her cheek and her shoulder as Beau tried to hide her face behind hands, overwhelmed by emotion, and yet still self-conscious enough to try and hide it. Still finding shame in the way she felt, the way she reacted, the fear that had lodged itself deep enough inside her that it became who she was, who she would always be. Someone who was hard to love. Someone who was impossible to love. 

Yasha just held her, rocked her, whispered soft words in Celestial to her until the sobbing quieted, the tears dried, and she was left with a worn-down, wrung-out Beauregard in her arms. 

“I’m sorry about that,” Beau said finally, voice croaky from her cries. Yasha huffed a small, but incredulous laugh.

“Do not apologize to me, Beau. You haven’t done anything wrong,” Yasha said carefully, looking down and trying not to cry herself as she was met by two adoring eyes, glinting in the moonlight. 

“You’re the first person who has made me feel… hope that I was…” 

“Enough?” Yasha asked. Beau nodded, an expression of relief on her face. Like maybe Yasha wasn’t lying. That she really did understand.

“I would never have forgiven myself if the hag had sent you somewhere I could not reach,” Yasha said carefully, loosening her arms so Beau could sit up more comfortably in her lap.

“I wouldn’t have… It feels selfish to say now, but I would not have let her send me somewhere that you could not find me. I went away of my own accord, but…”

“You wanted to believe that we would come after you,” Yasha said, finishing for her again. Beau nodded, looking down again now, embarrassed. “It’s not wrong, you know? To want to be loved and cared for.” Beau looked back up at these words, her expression wary, but hopeful. Wanting to believe that she was not wrong for it. 

They sat in companionable silence again, then, watching the moon make its slow trek over the city as more and more lights were dimmed in buildings, on the streets. The night was growing old. 

“I love you too,” Beau offered quietly. “I have for a while now. I realized in Bazzozan.”

Short. Quiet. She didn’t need to say more to speak to the memory between them. Yasha felt herself nod, face flushing red. Sure, Beau had spent the entirety of their relationship flirting, but it hadn’t felt serious. Never real. But this? This was real.

“I’m going to kiss you now, Beauregard,” Yasha said softly. She only saw a brief flash of Beau’s eyes beneath her before their lips came together, warm against the night’s chill, soft and yielding.

When Yasha pulled away, Beau was staring back up at her with stars in her eyes, a tired, giddy smile on her face.

Her fingers reached up gently, oh so gently, and touched the soul mark she had left on Yasha so many months ago in Hupperdook before kissing the mark, and leaning back into Yasha’s chest, a comforting weight.

Yasha regarded the marks on her shoulders, the ones from Beau.  _ These marks _ , she decided,  _ these marks would stay _ .

**Author's Note:**

> This was a first-time attempt at a soulmate AU! Title taken from "Guilty Party" by The National.
> 
> Please let me know what you think in the comments, and feel free to yell at me for being so mean to Beau. I churned this out in just over 24 hours and I did my best to proof it, but it's unbeta-ed, so all mistakes are my own!
> 
> Creative Liberty notes: Despite Yasha carrying Beau at the circus, I'm not counting that as first touch. Maybe it's because it was likely touching her through her clothes, maybe it's because this soulmate functionality is based on intentionally touching someone's skin with your hands, maybe it's because I decided that's what worked narratively! :)
> 
> Feel free to drop me prompts on tumblr @caitrun
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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